We've Always Had A Relationship
by MonstersInside
Summary: GSR in reterospect. A look back at the last fourteen years of the relationship between Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle. Told from both of their point's of view featuring insights in to their feelings in key moments in their relationship touched on in the show and delving into the details of what went on off-screen.
1. To Frisco With Bugs

**Part 1-Birds That Fly With Weightless Souls:**

_When did you and Supervisor Grissom begin your relationship?"_

_"We've always had a relationship..."_

**Chapter 1:**

To Frisco With Bugs...

_1999 Forensic Academy Conference-San Francisco. _

"Hey Sara, you coming out with us?" a voice called to her from the other side of the lockers.

"No, I can't." She threw back; pulling the hair tie from her wrist as she hastily scraped back her wild curls.

"Oh come on! It's not like you to pass on a night out!" the owner of the voice, a young twenty-something with thick, dense blonde hair and mischievous blue eyes came round the corner and in to view, leaning against the lockers and chewing at the large wad of bubblegum that was permanently super-glued to her teeth when she wasn't working, "What's up?"

"I told you last week! At the end of your class." Sara laughed lightly, closing over the lockers door as she pulled on a jacket, "I've got that anthropology seminar to go to." In response to the other woman's blank stare she widened her eyes and said, "The Forensic Academy...Doctor Gilbert Grissom if I remember, ringing any bells?"

"Oh yeah, now I remember." She chuckled teasingly, "I don't know why your bothering Sara, you should just come out with us instead. Marco said he fell asleep fifteen minutes in to a seminar by your genius 'Doctor Grissom'."

"Yeah well, Marco would fall asleep at _crime scenes_." Sara pointed out with a laugh, "I'm going." She added, firmly.

"God I'd forgotten how damn stubborn you were sometimes Sara Sidle!" she sighed playfully, drawing a signature smile from the brunette.

She opened her mouth to reply when a voice calling from the door interrupted them,

"Hey Candy! You coming or what?"

"Wilson?" Sara asked, recognising the voice and raising a mildly impressed eyebrow.

"Yeah..." she shrugged defensively, flushing as they moved towards the door, before, jabbing Sara lightly in the ribs and saying, "If you're jealous I'm sure we could find you a friend..."

"I've already said no!" Sara laughed, "You're persistent if nothing else, I'll give you that, but no means _no_."

She paused, glancing over her shoulder as Doug, who was slouching easily in against the door frame and smirked over her shoulder as she slipped past, winking, "Besides, he's not really my type."

"We've yet to find your 'type' Sara!" she tossed back, hanging in the doorway with a rather shell shocked looking Doug, grinning.

She turned back to them and called, "Hey, who knows? Maybe Doctor Grissom is my type!"

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She smiled as she ducked into the little run-down car waiting faithfully for her in the car park. As always, she said a little prayer as she jammed the key into the ignition that the thing would actually start.

It was a great little car but it had dragged her to mechanical Hell and forced her to drag it back from the brink several times over and it had developed a knack for picking exceptionally inappropriate times to break down.

Stranding her to the mercy of the empty car park feeling like a sitting duck with Doug and Candy banging on the window seemed a little too much up its street for her to start taking chances.

She had been about to fish her toolbox that she had installed in the boot when she had become tired of relying on mechanics and breakdown companies, from the back when the little engine finally, _mercifully _choked into life, just as Candy and Doug sauntered from the lab, his arm around her waist.

She threw them a cheerful little wave before gratefully pulling out of the car park.

This city held so many demons and nightmares within its walls and yet _this,_ this would keep her here. It would take her something exceptional to draw her away from this place after everything that had already happened could not tear her away from it.

She was far too early for the conference and so, with some luck and a strong tailwind, she coaxed the little car up one of the winding cliff paths.

Once at the top she could sit with the beautiful backdrop of bright city lights behind her and the great, rolling black ocean in front of her, the only light coming from where the pale moon gently kissed the glassy surface. The strange dancing fires of civilisation on the beach below, merrily tossing its golden sparks in high columns, like offerings to the stars swallowing them into the blackness. It seemed to bridge the gap between the two worlds, the rough, raw wild ocean and the towering concrete wilderness of the tamed city.

With one last glance out at the view and a fright as she checked her watch, she then hastily forced the little car back into life as she set off back towards civilisation.

She needn't have worried. When she arrived at the university she found that she had her times mixed up and was over an hour early.

She decided to take up the offer of going to sit in the cool auditorium while she waited. It, unlike the car she had thrown into a hasty space outside, had air conditioning.

She smiled quietly to herself as she entered the capacious, echoing auditorium and quietly traced her way down to the front row, her fingers running absently over the threaded backs of the chairs as she did so, savouring the soothing, isolation and quiet.

She picked her way along the front row to a seat directly opposite the podium.

"You're early." A voice observed from the shadows making her jump.

She smiled slightly at her notebooks, flushing and pushing a dense, runaway curl behind her ear as she told her knees,

"Yeah, I got my times mixed up."

"And here was me thinking that you were eager." The voice said with a hint of teasing dancing amongst its many layers.

"Maybe I am." She replied smoothly, "It's the reason I left work early today."`

She raised her large brown eyes and found them instantly connecting with her mystery voice whose owner had just stepped from the shadows as they were magnetically drawn to one another.

The eyes she now found herself drawn to and drowning in were an intense an electric blue and seemed to contain a faint veil of lust and warmth hidden in the depths of the cold raw knowledge that lay heavy on them.

She found herself smiling nervously and blushing slightly for reasons she could not quite place in herself as he answered,

"This is very true." He spoke softly, his eyes never leaving her, constantly studying her and rediscovering her, giving her the feeling that he could tell everything about her from that simple look.

"You're here for the anthropology lecture? With Doctor Grissom?"

She paused a moment, finding herself to be strangely tongue-tied as she said haltingly, "What-Oh, I mean yes, yes I am..."

He smiled, leaning easily against the stage, seeming to become calmer the more composure she lost as he asked,

"Have you seen him speak before?"

"Oh, ah, no, I haven't. This is my first, I'm a Grissom virgin you might say." She told him, flushing furiously at this. _Why are you over-talking around him? _

"Not for much longer." He replied with a small enigmatic smile, beneath twinkling eyes.

"No." She agreed, still blushing and avoiding his gaze as she added, "I know people who've seen him before though..."

"Really?" he said, amusement tugging at the corners of his lips, "And what did these 'people' have to say about him?" he asked curiously.

"I don't know." She laughed lightly in an off-hand voice, "They ah, they said they felt he was a little dull as a speaker, but..."

He laughed at this as well, the glimmer in his eye continuing to dance within its enigmatic depths "Then why did you come?"

She shrugged, scraping the hair that had escaped from its ponytail behind her ears before holding his gaze and saying, softly,

"I like to make my own mind up about things, particularly people; I don't want other people's opinions forced on me. Don't judge a book by its cover or another person on a name given to them by someone else.

His lips twitched into the first warm, genuine smile she had seen upon them before he nodded approvingly and said,

"You'll enjoy the lecture, I think." He told her softly,

"Well what makes you so sure about that?" she called as he began to walk away along the edge of the stage.

"The topic. It's about that very thing. The issues of taking things at face value, the dangers of first blush."

He turned when he reached the door at the corner of the stage and said,

"I don't think I got your name..."

"Sara." She told him, smiling, "Sara Sidle." She waited, and when he made to leave without sharing his own she called, "I didn't get yours either!"

"You will." the enigmatic, slightly flirtatious, disembodied voice told her from the corridor beyond, making her smile into her notepad as she shook her head.

As it turned out however, she did indeed get his, in a way she could never have expected or predicted. When the esteemed Doctor Grissom took his place on the platform, placed his notes on the podium and glanced out at the sea of faces, instantly finding hers, she felt her stomach drop and a heat creep up her neck as a shiver of electricity ran up her spine.

She had his name now alright.

Their eyes met again before he began, his filled with quiet merriment, registering how mortified hers were and acknowledging this with a smile and what she would have sworn was a wink before he began.

He did not start as she had expected however, by shuffling his papers and simply talking at them. Instead, he stepped out from behind the podium, leaning against it and abandoning the safety of his notes, his eyes sweeping his students before he asked simply, without preamble,

"As criminalists processing a scene, what is one of the biggest mistakes we can make with our evidence?"

"Contaminating it?" someone towards the back of the hall suggested,

"Missing it?" another voice offered, before someone else added on the back of this, "Overlook it?"

Grissom smiled and shook his head saying,

"No. You will do all of those things many times over the course of your career. They are inherent in being a criminalist and also in being human, they are honest mistakes. Nine times out of ten they can be fixed. I'm asking for something that we as humans want to do with every aspect of our lives and our work and that we should never consciously do with our evidence..." his eyes rested on hers as he spoke, eyebrows raised, inviting her to answer.

She obliged,

"Judging it too quickly."

"Yes." He said smiling and looking satisfied, "Very good."

He set off walking across the stage, drawing the eyes of everyone in the room as he continued, building upon her answer,

"Judging. Prejudice. Snap decisions. Each and every person in this room is guilty of at least one of those things because everyone in this room is a human being. We are all taught not to judge a book by its cover or another person on a name given to them by someone else, but we all do. It's human nature. We see something and make an instant assumption based on what we have seen, rather than on what we know. In our line of work, this can have unpredictable, and often irrevocable, consequences; overlooking key evidence, rejecting viable theories because of a biased focus, chasing endless rabbits to dead ends and being unable to find the path you should have followed. At the end of the day, there is only ever one thing we can rely on. The evidence. Not inferences and implications or hunches and gut instinct or past ghosts or prejudice. Only the evidence; because the evidence never lies."

She sat, entranced for the rest of the lecture, feeding off of his words and his passion. By the end of it, she was decided; Gil Grissom was definitely 'her type'. She spent the last twenty or so minutes of the lecture only half-listening, attempting to find an acceptable way of asking him to dinner.

The session ended as abruptly as it had began and it took her a few seconds to register that everyone was moving around her.

She hastily gathered up her stuff and made her way to the front of the hall to talk to him, heart in her mouth, breath catching in her throat.

"Doctor Grissom?" she said, slowly, as he turned around she smiled and blushed before saying, hurriedly, "Hi, ah, we, ah, we met before the lecture?"

"Yes, we did." He smiled, "Come to tell me I was, what was it now, 'a little dull as a speaker'?" he teased, eyes flashing

"No." She said, returning the smile, "I think I've changed my mind about that..."

"Oh really? And why would that be?" he asked lightly,

"The evidence changed." She said with a shrug, "So did my theory. After all, the evidence never lies."

"No, it does not." He replied easily, "Glad to see you've taken something from today."

"Well I would like to take a little more." She replied without thinking, something stirring in her deep eyes, "I mean, I would like to go somewhere with you just now." He raised an eyebrow at her as she panicked, just hearing what she had said, "To talk, about the lecture I mean. Unless of course..."

"No. I have time." He replied with a small smile, "The bodies will keep in Vegas...In the meantime, is there anywhere in San Francisco that sells any decent coffee?" he asked, already moving off towards the door leaving her suspended in the middle of the room, a little wrong-footed.

"What? Oh, oh yes, there is...Just, ah..."

She gave herself a little shake and hurried off after him, already planning their conversation that would now be taking place over coffee...

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He watched her curiously as they sat down outside in the little cafe she had pointed to when they had left the university building as she emptied several sachets of sugar into the black coffee that was simmering beneath her. He raised his own to his lips and kept it held in his hands as he said,

"So, you wanted to talk to me about the lecture?" he asked, watching her carefully, "You have some questions for me?"

"If you don't mind." She replied, flashing him a warm smile.

"I think it's a little late for that now don't you think." He said, gesturing around at their surroundings.

She laughed lightly at this, flushing slightly and burying herself in her coffee after murmuring, "That's very true..."

He watched her carefully, taking in every movement, every detail of her. It was strange. He did not know why he had agreed to this little coffee break, or rather why he himself had volunteered it. If it had been any other lecture, any other student, he would not have been sitting in a cafe in the pleasant San Francisco sunshine sipping coffee with them, he would have been in a taxi on the way to the airport to get back Vegas. But apparently for her, the bodies would keep...

That fact alone fascinated him. Why was he drawn to her? Of all of the women, of all of the _people_ on this planet, why did she draw him to her in this way?

She interrupted his musings here as she said,

"Yes, ah, well obviously, the point of the lecture was that we shouldn't always rely on our first opinions at a crime scene, or really anywhere in life, but aren't first opinions essential in some way? If we didn't act upon them initially, we would never do anything, be that going looking for evidence we think we know is there, or approaching another person because our first impressions have drawn us to them?"

He considered her question thoughtfully for a moment, considering the irony of her last statement in the midst of his own internal thoughts before saying simply,

"First opinions are crucial, but if the evidence changes so must the theory." He watched her reaction for a moment and when she neither jumped in to support or refute this, he continued, "You were right, spot on in fact, _initially _we must act upon them, for how else will we know that that evidence wasn't there for us all along, or that that person wasn't someone we would get on with? Initially is the crucial point there, initially we must follow our instincts and our assumptions but we must also be willing to change them, to abandon them, to look elsewhere in response to the newest piece of evidence."

"And if that evidence never presents itself to us?" she asked quietly, "If all we ever have is our first opinions, what then?"

"All evidence found is treated in the same way. Whether we find it in the first few minutes at a crime scene or whether it comes months after our initial discovery. All evidence is impartial, unbiased, with no prejudice or judgement attached. All of that comes from those that process it. People have a tendency to latch on, to become too attached, to start stubbornly down one path and fence themselves in with their determination and refuse to even consider walking another. That is when first impressions lead to problems. When your first impression is that of empathy, for the victim, for their situation, then you lose sight of what's important."

"Why did you take this job?" she asked softly, "Why do you keep doing it?" her eyes burned brightly with something he could not quite place.

As thrown as he was by this sudden question, he answered her quietly and honestly, regardless of where it took them next,

"Because the dead can't speak for themselves. We are the victim's last voice."

"Then how can you deny that the victims are important?" she breathed, "We search for the truth, we search for justice, for _them_."

"Of course, in that context they are important. But in terms of our job, of our evidence, they are not." He said quietly, watching her keenly. Part of this was what he actually believed; part of it was an attempt to draw from her what she believed.

"Not all evidence needs to be blood and fingerprints and fibres." She countered, shaking her head, "What someone says, how they say it, can sometimes be more telling than the things you can see on the surface. For example, someone might say that saying 'I love you' is evidence of that person's feelings, but by looking deeper in to how they are saying it and the look in their eyes, I could tell that they were lying and therefore completely change the meaning of that evidence. Without a victim, without a context blood and fibres, that's all they are, blood and fibres, they don't mean much of anything on their own. The victim gives the truth meaning."

He considered her over his coffee mug for a moment. She seemed almost embarrassed at the passion with which she had spoken, as though she feared she had revealed too much of herself.

"You're stumbling into the part of forensics where science meets faith. Philosophy begins to intertwine with fact."

She shook her head slowly, "I don't think so. I think it's where forensics meets humanity."

They talked for several more hours, and became so lost in the other's company that he only called an abrupt halt to their meeting when he realised that if he did not leave her soon, he would miss the last flight back to Vegas.

He stood, apologising and paused a moment, sensing that there was something else she wanted to say, something she had been trying to say since they first sat down together. Still, all she did was offer him her hand and say,

"Thank you for your time Doctor Grissom."

"You're very welcome." He said, a little thrown by this. This reserved quietness he was observing after the strong heat and passion she had placed on her words before this as he had talked to her about everything from anthropology to entomology, truth to lies, science to philosophy and saw that she had argued her case well for all of the strong opinions that she held. "Here." He said, impulsively, scrawling down his phone number and email address on the napkin at their table, "In case you have any more questions about anthropology." He told her lightly.

"Thank you..." she murmured, after he had already crossed the street and flagged down a taxi.

In truth, he had given her his details, and had given her a call and a job offer that she had accepted several months later because of reasons wholly separate from forensics. It was her. She had drawn him in and instead of boring him, or causing him to lose interest in her, she had renewed it. He wanted to explore every inch of this strange and beautiful creature. She was captivating and intriguing and he was loathe to lose something like that, to leave a puzzle unsolved.

A/N: Just a little prologue chapter based on my take on their first meeting. I'll probably go through each season, taking a couple of chapters for each and picking out my favourite episodes, if anyone has any particular thoughts or requests about this my ears are always open! :) Thanks for reading! What did you think?


	2. From Frisco With Love

**Chapter 2**

From Frisco With Love

"Hello?" she asked, fumbling with the phone as she held it against her ear, jamming it against her shoulder to leave her hands free to continue attempting to top up the print powder in the jar she had precariously balanced on her knee.

"Sara Sidle?"

The voice floated through the speakers and into her eardrums like the whispers of a half-forgotten song. She knew the words but could not quite remember who they belonged to.

"Speaking." She replied, a little cautiously, pausing in what she was doing.

"Ms Sidle? This is Gil Grissom, from Vegas."

She jumped and muffled a curse as the little jar fell from her lap in response to her surprise and showered the dismal grey tiles below with thick, clinging black print powder. Now she remembered. Really, how could she have forgotten, even for a moment?

"Doctor Grissom. What can I do for you?" she asked mildly.

She was sure he wanted something. She could hear it in his voice if nothing else, that lost confusion looking to her for some kind of guidance, searching for comfort and meaning in her words, but hearing his voice at all had been enough of a hint.

They had kept in touch after the conference but it had mainly been via email and had always been strictly professional, other than the requests for semi-decent hotels while he was in town, despite obvious signs it should be something more. It was rare for him to call and even rarer to hear his tone reflecting more than the strict professionalism he always maintained, tinged with the desire to be something their jobs prevented.

"I need your help Sara." He told her quietly,

She would normally have made a joke here about having already recommended the best hotels San Francisco had to offer but something in his voice held her tongue.

"What do you need me to do?" she asked softly,

"I need you to come to Vegas and look in to something for me. We had a young CSI, fresh from training left alone at a crime scene. We think she was attacked by the original suspect; he shot her. She's in surgery as we speak."

"I'm sorry..." she breathed, still a little unsure of why this of all things would have prompted him to suggest for her to make a trip out to Vegas. Still, she could almost see him running a hand over his face and through his hair, consumed by guilt and pain.

"I need someone impartial with no ties to my tea, or to this lab to conduct an internal investigation into why and how this happened."

"Why not call IA?" she asked gently, more wondering why he had called her as opposed to why he had not called anyone else.

"I don't want this to be handled by _internal affairs._" He replied derisively, and she understood his dislike, "Parasites." He spat, "Swarming over everything, they'll be less impartial than we would, any excuse..." he took a deep breath and told her evenly, "I want someone that I know. I want a friend, someone that I trust."

"Well you could-"she began,

"I want you Sara." He interrupted softly,

He had spoken so quickly and so quietly that she questioned for a moment whether or not he had said those words. The shock that seemed to spread like ice through every nerve in her body told her that he had.

As she lost herself in disbelief and ridiculous ideas that he could mean what they both wanted him to mean, she felt the words fall from her lips without her permission, the rash promise forming from feeling and without thought,

"I'll get the next flight out..."

His distracted thanks reached her in a faint hush before he was gone.

She leant back on against the wall behind her, pressing the phone to her lips and closing her eyes as she wondered whether or not she would live to regret this decision. Though, in saying that, Sin City seemed like the perfect place for her to run from the demons trapped in this town and to learn to dance with new ones at last.

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Her supervisor was surprised by this sudden turn of events, though not nearly as much as she was, but accepted her decision without question. He only noted the irony in her taking vacation days to go and do more work. He did not ask how long she would be and only told her to play a little poker, go to a few clubs, while she was there and try to enjoy herself while she was there.

It felt strange to leave. To make herself leave. She had rarely ventured from San Francisco, family holidays had not been at the top of her parents' list of priorities, and she was not entirely sure that she wanted to abandon the comfort and security of the city for somewhere as wild and unpredictable as Vegas. Still, it would not be forever and it was for him, for a friend, so that would be worth it.

She arrived in Vegas in broad daylight after having taken an early morning flight and found that the darkness and intrigue of Vegas was wholly captured and reliant upon the night. When the sun rose and stripped it of the shadows where its monsters hid, it was somewhat of a disappointment, like the true personality of a one-night stand being revealed in the harsh morning light that the night had so conveniently forgotten to mention.

Deciding not to throw herself to the wolves straight away without any warning, she made a call to the lab from the airport instead and asked where she could find Doctor Grissom. She was told that he was out in the field and after some light pressing for details; she flagged down a taxi and asked that it drop her off at The Monaco Casino.

She had spent the flight picking her way through the details of the case and was now fairly confident that she knew it as well as any of the CSIs in Vegas working it. Still, she had been on the receiving end of enough internal investigations to know that she could not just grab her kit and amble onto the scene and start processing.

If Grissom wanted her to work with the CSIs already assigned to the case then she intended to work with them and she had a feeling that alienating them by trying to waltz into their lab and take over their case without Grissom's blessing would be a bad start and would spell something of a suicide for her in Vegas.

So once again, she found herself unavoidable drawn to Gil Grissom.

When she arrived at The Monaco she had discovered that it had not been as difficult to locate him as she had anticipated.

The grotesque simulation dummies she had always despised falling from the rooftop was her first clue but more than that was the loud, applauding group of morbid spectators who had gathered around the tape to gawp at the latest forensic production of 'Raining Men'.

This was the first thing that struck her, and that really stuck with her about this town. The clichéd phrase that she had attributed to being just that, 'Only in Vegas' though it was something that truly seemed to fit.

In the real world, these people would not see a manikin but another human being. A death. A loss. A tragedy. They would not see what the rose tinted glasses of Vegas showed them. A spectacle. A source of entertainment.

It was then that she realised the true nature of the beast Grissom had dragged her into, though she did not think that she would ever understand it.

"Norman pushed. Norman fell. Norman jumped." A familiar voice said as she pushed her way through the crowd and ducked her way under the crime scene tape courtesy of a badge she had around her neck.

"Well wouldn't you if you were married to Mrs Roper?" she asked, glazing at him through the thick black sunglasses she wore.

"I don't even have to turn around." He said, raising the camera and straightening up as she grinned, "Sara Sidle."

"That's me." She replied, sliding the glasses from her eyes as he turned around and once again their eyes met. After a moment of friendly conversation, she watched the light that her arrival had sparked within them to die as he turned to the reason he had brought her here.

"God Sara, I have so many unanswered 'whys'." He told her quietly,

"There's only one why that matters now; why did Warrick Brown leave that crime scene?"

He nodded slowly at this and something flashed in his eyes that gave her a faint hint as to why he had needed someone objectionable to deal with this.

He took a deep breath and said, "I take it you're caught up on the details?" he asked quietly,

She nodded, "Yeah, just about...Everything that was in the files anyway."

"Alright..." he hesitated for a moment before saying, "Would you like to go and get a coffee or something, I need someone to talk this through with and that would probably help you as well."

She agreed, seeing the hurt and the exhaustion that he had hidden so well before, as the mask now slipped in her presence.

"You done with Norman then?" she asked with a faint smile, attempting to lighten the mood as she indicated the dummy.

"I think you make a good enough substitute." He replied, returning her mysterious, almost flirtatious smile with a wink as he led her away from the scene.

They settled themselves in a small restaurant inspirationally names 'Frank's Diner' Grissom seemed to know judging by the enthusiastic service they received almost before they had sat down.

They both ordered coffee and while they waited she said quietly,

"What is it about this case that's got so under your skin?" in response to his questioning look she shrugged and said, "As I recall, Doctor Grissom is of the opinion that we're 'not really in the business of why' but that's the only question you've asked me about this."

"I don't know Sara..." he sighed, "It's easy to say that when the people involved you've never met before. It's easier to see them as evidence rather than people, but when it involves someone you know, someone you were close to, someone who's influenced your life, however much, it becomes harder to look at the how and the what and becomes so much easier to fixate on the why..."

She had barely had time to smile sympathetically when a large, rosy cheeked woman presented them with their coffees and her two cents.

"Well aren't you a little sweetie?" she said to a very taken-aback Sara, "She's a peach Gil." She told Grissom cheerfully who looked more mortified than wrong-footed as she continued, "You two make an adorable couple." She continued cheerfully while Grissom considered drowning himself in his coffee as Sara buried a smile in hers, "About time!" she told him, "You two enjoy your coffee now..." she finished, retreating with a wink.

"Thank you Dora..." Grissom muttered, burying his face in his hands as Sara bit her lip, trying to avoid laughing.

As the waitress retreated back to the kitchen she could no longer contain herself as she began to laugh, more at his expression of horror than anything else.

As Grissom opened his mouth to say _something_ their pleasant coffee evening was interrupted by his phone. His face instantly stripped their meeting of its atmosphere.

"What's happened?" she asked quietly,

"Holly Gribbs has come out of surgery..." he said softly,

"She's not?" Sara began in horror. This situation was bad enough already.

"No." Grissom said quietly, though his expression did not seem to hint at any kind of miraculous recovery any time soon, "She's in a coma...They don't think she's going to wake up. They're going to take her back in to surgery in an hour in some last ditch attempt..."

"I'm sorry Grissom..." she told him quietly, awkwardly stretching her hand across the table but without making any physical contact. He sighed, shaking his head and she glanced at him perceptively before saying softly, "This is about more than the girl though isn't it? What's really getting to you?"

"Warrick..." he said quietly,

She nodded. She had expected this. Something in his reaction when she had mentioned his name earlier had told her that this was as much about him as it was about Holly. "He shouldn't have left her." She said quietly,

"No." He agreed, "But I think he's going to punish himself enough for whatever happens to her."

"You know that's not enough." She told him flatly. He had brought her in to do her job and she was not about to mince her words because he had a soft spot for Warrick, "There was more behind this than Warrick getting bored with her, _that's_ what you need to deal with here."

"He's a good CSI Sara..." he sighed, appealingly,

"That's not enough Grissom. If he's not capable of being a good CSI then-"

"That's enough." He said sharply, "I didn't bring you in here to start making snap judgements."

"No, you didn't, you brought me in here to be objective, you brought me in here to make the judgements that you couldn't because of personal bias, I'm beginning to see that now." She told him. Her voice remained even and level but her eyes flashed dangerously, "I haven't got any reason to treat Warrick as being any more or any less than any other person on this planet. I came here for Holly Gribbs, not Warrick Brown, if that's going to be a problem then I'll-"

"No, no, please." He said quietly.

His gentle hands wrapped around her wrist and guided her back to her seat. She obliged, a little reluctantly. He was already pushing her too far. If it had been anyone else, she would have left the diner several sentences ago.

"I didn't mean that Sara." He told her quietly, his blue eyes burning with the desire to make her understand, "I didn't mean that I wanted you to do anything other than your job, which I wanted you to go against your principles for Warrick. I'm sorry if it came across that way. I'm just..." he sighed, breaking off here as he glanced down at the table, his hands running through the dense, dark curls, "This is not..."

"I know." She told him quietly, "It's hard losing someone on your team, it doesn't matter how long they've been there for. It's a shock; it's a wake-up call. That thing they always told you could happen but you never expected that it would happen _has._.."

"Yes." He said, quietly. He paused a moment and she watched as he teetered on the edge of opening up to her. "Go back to the lab, find Catherine Willows, she'll bring you up to speed on the case." He told her, hastily scrawling her details on a scrap of paper torn from a notebook in his pocket.

She stood up and had taken a few steps away from him before she turned back, opening her mouth to speak. He was lost in thought, swirling the dregs of his coffee around the cup and she could tell that he had shut down, any chance she had had of talking to him, of really talking to him, was gone.

She hesitated another moment before thinking better of it and leaving him sitting alone in the booth with his coffee and his thoughts.

They hated her. She could see it in their eyes. She was sure that they felt as she had done, that she was trying to take over their case, to take the glory for their justice. That she was Grissom's Golden Girl, that they had some kind of history, that she felt she wasn't worthy of them, that she wasn't worthy of their trust.

She could deal with that. As long as they accepted that she could and _would _do her job and would find out what happened to that girl, she would deal with them. This was not the first time in her life she had been alienated, isolated, it wouldn't be the last. Besides, she preferred being on her own anyway...

When the news of the girl's death broke, that didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was doing their jobs, regardless of who they were; they all wanted the same thing now.

She stood outside the lab as they all watched as their suspect was dragged off to prison to await trial. With them, and yet not with them. Grissom lightly brushed her arm and murmured,

"Sara. A word?"

They ducked back under the canopy and into the shade as the rest of the team dispersed and he turned to her, studying her, waiting for her to speak. She did, finally,

"What happens to Warrick now?" she asked quietly, not meeting his gaze,

"I don't know..." he sighed, "Let's not talk about Warrick. I want to talk about you."

"What about me?" she asked, finally meeting his gaze as she turned to f ace him, trying to find something in those cold blue eyes.

"You did well today Sara..." he told her,

"I had help." She shrugged, "You have a good team working with you Grissom."

"I do." He said solemnly, "But the best can always be made better."

She stared at him, not sure of what he was asking, "What are you-"

"I want you to stay here in Vegas, with me, with this team."

"I don't know I-"

"You're better than what they're giving you in San Francisco. I can offer you much more, here; I can make use of you, of your talents. To be honest I need you Sara. I need someone to hold this team together, to stop it from falling apart, to stop me from..." he broke off, stopping carefully before he revealed too much of himself to her, "I think it would be good for everyone..."

She gazed at him, taking in every feature. If she was honest with herself, she had almost expected this, she had almost _prayed _for this. Something to finally give her a good enough reason to pull herself from San Francisco, to leave behind the ghosts that would never rest there, to start again. On one hand, he was right, this would be good for her, she needed this, she needed to get away before she fell apart, the cracks were beginning to show, she knew that. She was letting herself get too close up there. To the people, to the cases. Everything reminded her of her past and she would not live in anything but the now. She needed to put some distance between herself and the Golden City, perhaps Gil Grissom was the best way to do that.

On the other hand, she was not sure that she wanted to be drawn into this world, and she was not entirely sure what it was that she was letting herself be drawn in for. She was terrified of this town, of everything in it, of what it could and did do to people and she was not sure that she wanted to delve any deeper into the minds of the monsters that bred in Vegas. And she was not sure she wanted to delve any deeper in to Gil Grissom.

He had an effect on her that she could not explain, and that was unlike anything else; more powerful than addiction, more frightening than Vegas and yet, for all she knew their relationship could only ever become toxic while he treated her like this, drawing her in so far and then pushing her away, she needed that. She needed some sort of relationship and he was the first and only human being she had ever considered allowing that to happen with.

"OK...I'll do it." She told him, smiling wildly, again not sure why she was agreeing to this.

He smiled properly for the first time since her arrival in Vegas. "Are you going to stay here tonight?" he asked quietly,

"I think I might just stay." She told him quietly, "I've never been one for lengthy goodbyes. I might just put myself up in a hotel, start looking for somewhere and have my stuff sent over when I've got somewhere more permanent to stay."

"...Would you like to get something to eat?" he asked quietly,

She turned on him, sharply, surprised and slightly confused by this, "What?" she asked, raising her eyebrows,

"Well, I just thought, with it being your first night here..." he told her, uncomfortably, "Food in Vegas pitches from the sublime to the ridiculous, and to the damned inedible."

She smiled at this before looking away from him, drawing her arms around herself as she said, "You know, I think I'll be OK..."

She did not want to start this by walking into his arms whenever he asked, going to him whenever he called, allowing them to have some sort of relationship when it suited him. She would not willingly let anyone do that to her again. She turned back towards the car park, intent on flagging down a taxi and finding somewhere to pretend to sleep that night saying evenly over her shoulder as she left,

"I'll see you in the morning Doctor Grissom..."


End file.
